


we learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school

by janie_tangerine



Category: Iron Fist (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Class Differences, F/M, Friends to Lovers, High School, Martial Arts, Prom, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-06 21:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12826803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: in which they go two neighboring but very different schools. Spoilers: it's not a deterrent.





	we learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school

**Author's Note:**

> So, LAST REPOST OF THE DAY, in the post-Defenders prompt taking I got, _ironwing high school au_. THIS THING HAPPENED. Idek. I DON'T EVEN DO THIS TROPE usually but it was very cute and I tried and yeah have the last of the tooth-rotting fluff for the day.
> 
> As usual, nothing belongs to me and the title is from Springsteen. *drops the fluff and runs still sending regards to the dentists*

Danny Rand is  _not_ , in the natural order of things, the kind of person Colleen even  _talks_  to, never mind hangs out with.

In fact, until now, none of that has happened. And why would it even? They’re not even in the same damned  _school_.

Fact is: Colleen has no idea who thought placing a public school next to one of those extra pricey private places for rich kids who will go to college regardless of their GPA was a good idea. She has a clue it’s because of the whole part where this previously rich-as-hell neighborhood was forced to accept people coming in from the suburbs because the city forced them to accept popular houses being built on the premises, and of course no one could afford to send  _their_ kid to the only other school in the area, as in, the extra pricey private one.

Colleen would know – for that matter, she’s living with her grandmother only and if she hadn’t been alive she’d most probably be in a group home by now.

Anyway, it’s not that she knows anyone at the fancy private school, but their garden has a fence in common with her school’s, which means that she sees enough of them during recess.

Now, the first thing about Danny Rand is, he  _hadn’t_  been previously attending the fancy school when Colleen and her grandmother moved in a year ago.

The first thing about Danny Rand is that until six months ago, everyone thought he had died with his parents in a plane crash, and then it turned out that he was in fact alive but had been stranded in a Chinese small village without communication with the real world, and then  _somehow_  he found his way back to New York, and he’s now living with the other CEO of his parent’s filthy rich company and his family.

Who, of course, sent him to the nearest fancy private school.

The second thing about Danny Rand is that, given what Colleen sees from the other side of the fence, he’s nowhere near the asshole everyone else in his school seems to be.

She’s seen him sharing his lunch with random people from the first day he showed up. He – strangely – doesn’t use the school’s uniform (it’s optional, from what she sees, but most kids use it because it makes them look even more stuck-up), nor the designer clothes anyone else wears, even if he could afford them. He broke up at least four or five fights during the six months he’s been attending, from what she sees. She’s also sure she’s never seen him angry or pissed at anyone – heck, he’s  _horribly_  nice to anyone who even talks to him.

In short, he seems like a nice kid. Colleen never was the person to judge someone’s character based on their bank account, anyway, and she can figure that if you spend five years in another country after seeing your parents die you might want to make friends.

Which is why she gets very, very  _irked_  when one day she’s sitting down in the yard, going through her math homework, and hears some of the two rich kids from the other side talking near the fence.

“Can you believe it,” Kid Number One says, “he actually  _didn’t even blink_  before lending me some money when I asked? I didn’t even  _need_  it.”

“Why did you ask then?” Kid Number Two replies.

“Are you kidding? I just wanted to see if he was  _really_  that dumb. I mean, half of his class has done it and he actually hasn’t realized they don’t  _like_  him.”

“Is he really  _that_  weird?” Kid Number Two says. Colleen has decided to rename the first Asshole Number One. “I mean, I don’t have any of his classes, so I wouldn’t know.”

“He’s pathetic, honest. I mean, I get he probably has  _issues_ , but anyone who talks to him, seems like they’re best friends or something. Never mind that he wouldn’t even know how to turn on a smartphone, can you believe that? And sometimes he starts speaking Chinese or some shit like that without even realizing. The fun thing was when he asked why there was a fence  _here_.”

“He  _didn’t know_?”

“Someone explained it to him and he was looking at them like they grew two heads, then he said he didn’t think it was nice to speak  _ill_ of the public schoolers and he didn’t get it. Imagine that.”

“What, he wants to buy everyone over there lunch?”

“I have a feeling he  _might_  if anyone suggested it to him,” Asshole Number One concludes.

Colleen kind of wants to tell them a few choice words because honest, she doesn’t know the kid but she can’t believe they’d be so – so judgmental just because he most probably wants friends. Hell, in a year she only made friends with Claire and then got others  _through_ her, but she can relate to being really bad at it. And of course you don’t know about smartphones if you spend five years in a  _Chinese village in the middle of nowhere_.

She sighs. Whatever. It’s not as if she’ll ever have a chance to warn the kid that he’s surrounded by vipers.

–-

Or so she thinks until a week later.

–-

It goes like this.

The principal of  _her_  school has apparently talked to the principal of  _their_  school for some kind of  _program_ that might get both schools’ kids to interact, which then turns out to be sponsored by social service and a committee of previous and new residents to make the atmosphere somewhat less tense.

Which includes having  _common_  sports teams for the entire second semester.

Colleen needs the credits and so she signs up for the martial arts section of it – she’s already in the school’s team, but she figures this  _will_  give her some extra points.

Imagine her surprise when she goes for the first meeting and it turns out that Danny Rand is  _the only_  student in his entire school who’s willingly signed up for the martial arts team, and since she’s the best in the entire school they pick _her_  out of all the applicants, and they get paired together for the school’s kung fu team. Or better, they’re the only two people in the team itself since it’s just the two of them wanting to do this thing in the first place.

She doesn’t know what to expect.

It’s certainly not him holding out her hand and shaking it and introducing himself absolutely  _normally_ as if they’re at exactly the same level.

She shakes it back. At least it’ll be a nice semester.

–-

In the next two weeks, Colleen finds out the following:

  * a) Danny Rand is  _actually that damned nice_ ;
  * a1) No, he’s not acting, he’s  _physically incapable_ of acting;
  * b) He  _does_  have a tendency to pay for everything if you want to grab a bite after karate practice, but he doesn’t even  _think_ about it and you really can’t be angry at him for that;
  * c) He  _does_  have a tendency to slip into Chinese at times but it’s okay because she also understands it even if she doesn’t practice as much as she’d like, and fine, he seems incapable of doing more than the basics with his phone, but it’s  _normal_ , given where he comes from;
  * d) He absolutely does  _not_  brag about his money and when she offhandedly tells him about her friends he’s actually  _interested_  in hearing about them, and he doesn’t even bat an eyelid when she says that their group is made of  _all_  orphans, one of which is also blind and one has anger issues that land them at the school’s counselor every other day, which is  _way_ more than most people would say, and sure as hell more than any of his classmates;
  * e) He’s also damn fucking good at kung fu;



And, most important of all, he doesn’t deserve  _any_  of the shit she hears from his classmates during recess. Fine, he can be weird at times and he tends to talk a lot and he has his quirks, but he’s  _so fucking nice_  you can’t do anything other than taking it in stride.

Which is why she has a clue or ten of why, a month after they start training together, she finds him outside the dojo not in tears but  _obviously_  having cried before.

“Let me guess,” she says, “you heard some of your classmates talking about you behind your back.”

“How would you know?” He almost sobs.

“I spend recess on the other side of the fence. I hear things.”

He shrugs. “Point taken. I just – they didn’t know I was hearing. I guess. And – I  _had no idea_? That they thought I was – weird. I mean. No one ever – guess it’s because of the money, isn’t it?” He says it with disdain.

Good.

“I guess,” she replies, “and they’re all idiots.”

“Wait, what?”

She might as well fess up, at least for the part where she doesn’t think he’s an idiot or  _weird_ , and not for the part where she thinks that his lovely blonde curls and blue eyes and smooth face are actually  _cute_.

“Danny, everything  _weird_  you do is normal if  _you’ve spent five years in China_  after surviving a plane crash. You’re so  _not_  stuck up that you don’t even make me feel like a leech when you pay for coffee, and just seeing you look overjoyed that you did it is enough to kill that instinct. You’re – you’re the nicest person I ever ran into and it’s not a  _bad_  thing. I’m just sorry they don’t get it. Never mind that given how much money  _their_ parents have, it’s kind of hypocritical.”

So, she had figured that her admittedly sad attempt at pep talking might cheer him up, some, but she hadn’t expected his face to  _light up completely_  in answer, and  _how_ the hell is someone that terrible at hiding their emotions?

“It’d be stupid to ask you if you mean it, wouldn’t it?”

She laughs. “I don’t dole out compliments just like that, if you hadn’t noticed before.”

“No,” he says, “no, you don’t,” and then his hand tentatively touches hers and for a moment her head spins because  _wait_ , this is really what doesn’t happen in the natural order of things, not really, but then she swallows and thinks,  _does he really mean it_ , and she chances threading their fingers together, and –

“Can I –?” He asks, and it’s obvious what he’s asking permission for, and –

There have been a few people who tried to kiss her without asking first. They all ended up with a bruise and with their back on the ground, and they never tried again.

“Yes,” she says, and it turns out that while Danny Rand has  _definitely_ never kissed anyone else in his life he’s quite good at it, and he does it with  _intent_ , and then he tells her he had been wanting to for a couple of months at this point, and Colleen doesn’t even know what the hell she should say other than  _and I’ve been thinking you’re cute for the last six months or so_ , so she doesn’t and kisses him again instead.

–-

She doesn’t tell anyone outside of her friends that they’re together – it’s not quite a good idea because people would assume that she’s bragging and honestly, she doesn’t want to use him as a trophy or something. Her friends, admittedly, take it in stride and say that she should introduce them at some point, just to see if he’s really  _that_ nice, because he sounds too good to be real.

_He_  has no such quibbles, or not as many.

Actually, the day before the martial arts competitions start, he tells her that by now he’s choosing who to talk to based on their reaction when they learn  _who_  is he dating.

“Seriously?” Colleen asks.

“No one who asks me if I’m  _lowering myself_  is worth my time,” Danny shrugs in reply.

That’s when Colleen decides that maybe it’s time she introduces him to her grandmother.

The day after they arrive first in their league, which pretty much turns them into their social worker’s pride and joy since  _no one else_ in their program managed to accomplish anything, she does invite him over.

He shows up with a small bouquet of discreet but nicely arranged flowers, dressed  _in a goddamned tux_  and when her grandmother realizes he’s actually fluent in Chinese they don’t speak a word of English for the entire dinner.

“Invite him more often,” her grandmother says after he leaves.

Colleen goes to bed thinking that she  _definitely_  will.

–-

“Can you believe some girls from senior year asked  _me_  to prom?” Danny sounds  _fairly_  outraged, bless him.

“Are you that angry because they obviously asked you out for your money or because they ignored you’re otherwise occupied?”

“… Both, actually,” he says. “You’d think I haven’t made a mystery out of it.”

While  _she_  has, and maybe in the beginning it made sense, but –

_But_  now maybe it doesn’t, and even if everyone else will think that she’s with him for the money,  _who cares_?

“At  _my_  school, prom is open to all years,” she says, and what the hell, since when she sounds so insecure? “Maybe  _I_  should ask you to prom.”

“Wait,  _really_?”

“Just don’t dress up too much,” she says, and then they don’t talk anymore because he’s kissed her on the street corner where  _anyone_ from both schools can see them.

Too bad. She doesn’t really care.

–-

He  _does_  come to prom with regular clothes, thankfully because Colleen’s only halfway decent dress was paid fifteen dollars at a thrift shop, but his green t-shirt and dark jeans match the light green of her outfit, and they didn’t even agree on it.

They  _do_  get stares when they show up in the gym, which is a lot less fancy than the one at his school, but he doesn’t seem to give two fucks. Colleen introduces him to Matt, Jess, Claire and Luke, and half an hour later Jess is grumbling that it’s unfair, he’s  _really_  that nice and she feels bad teasing him.

Colleen thinks that it’s because when Jess said  _if you break her heart I’ll kick your ass_  the moment after they were introduced, he replied,  _of course, I wouldn’t expect otherwise_ , and what the hell do you even reply to  _that_?

–-

What she doesn’t expect, is finding him in her advanced math class when she walks into it at the beginning of the next school year.

_What_?

“The hell are you doing  _here_?” She asks.

“I might have forgotten to tell you I switched schools,” he grins, and –

“You had  _all summer_  to do it!”

“But I wanted it to be a surprise,” he keeps on, still grinning, and –

“But  _why_?”

“Well, I don’t  _need_  a fancy school on my CV if I want to go to college and honest, it’s not even worth the price. And why would I stay there when  _here_  the company is so much better?”

Right. Because of course now her friends are his, too, and they all hung out together most of the summer, while he hasn’t hung out with anyone from  _his_  school in forever.

“Besides,” he goes on, “we should be on the same team for the next competition, and this year we can’t if we aren’t in the same school.”

Colleen can’t argue with  _that_  logic either.

It’s probably not dignified that they start the school year with half an hour in detention because the teacher walks in on them locking lips in her classroom, but Colleen can’t care less and, she’s sure, neither can Danny.

So maybe  _nothing_  is in the natural order of things, as far as the two of them are concerned.

But not just  _maybe_ , the natural order of things is overrated.

 

End.


End file.
